A late-afternoon shooting at the John W. Hyatt Court complex on Hawkins Street in Newark ended the life of 16-year-old Kevin Barber on January 11, 2017. Barber, a Black/African American student at East Side High School, was one of four teenagers struck in the exchange of gunfire just after 5 p.m.; three others, aged 15, 16, and 19, were wounded. Investigators recovered evidence markers and shell casings at the scene, and the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed Barber’s death as the county’s first fatal shooting that year.

Barber’s grandfather, Herbert Waldron, expressed the family’s grief and frustration over ongoing neighborhood violence. Authorities identified 24-year-old Newark resident Raheem Rudd as a suspect; a manhunt followed and Rudd was located in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was arrested in July 2017 and charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and weapons offenses.